


Heat of the Moment

by sifuamelia



Series: Rewrite the Stars [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Confessions, Denial of Feelings, Eventual Fluff, Fluffy Ending, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lovesickness, M/M, Mild Language, Mutual Pining, POV Lance (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 03, Pre-Season/Series 04, Protective Keith (Voltron), Red Paladin Lance (Voltron), Revelations, Training, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-19 17:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2395997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifuamelia/pseuds/sifuamelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith offers to help Lance get into peak fighting form, but Lance is beginning to regret taking him up on that offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heat of the Moment

"Do it again."

Lance looks over his bitingly sore shoulder and glares at Keith, standing a few feet away from the edge of the training floor. "You're obnoxious."

"You're unfocused," the other boy spits back, tartly uncompromising. It's unusual for him to be  _this_  severe, and it grates on Lance's nerves (which have been grated on a little too frequently as of late). "I'm beginning to wonder whether or not you're really committed to this."

Lance's fists clench tightly at his sides, wanting so badly to throw a few verbal punches back at him. But he refuses to give Keith any more ammo — instead, he mutters under his breath, "I'll show you committed," and stalks back across the room to reset the exercise.

Three deflections, one tumble, one punch. It's simple enough — a basic form that would make any of the other Paladins scoff at its simplicity. Something that he'd learned early on, surrounded by shiny white walls, relentless Altean battle droids, and Coran masquerading as a drill sergeant. But in the present, he'd rather be locked on the castle's training deck with only the frenzied mustachioed royal advisor for company. Anybody over an increasingly testy Black Paladin.

"Ready?" said paladin asks.

"Just do it," Lance grits out.

Keith's punch comes hot and fast, the mere sight of it nearly knocking him over, and he shifts backward out of his stable stance — first mistake. Had he raised his arms even a millisecond later, he would've had the lights knocked out of him. Lance dives beneath the next hit, skidding between Keith's knees, and lands behind him, throwing up his next hit—

But the other boy promptly blocks him, having had enough time to twist forward and move his hands to cover Lance's. There's a moment when their eyes make contact, but he quickly breaks it, dropping his fists like a hot coal. Keith stalks away from him, back turned and tensed. "Again."

"No!" The substantially increased volume of his own voice surprises Lance, but he continues on anyway. "No! That'll be the sixth time. We're done with that set, let's go onto the next. I'm more than ready."

Suddenly, Keith turns on him, his eyes full of his own fire. " _Fine_. If _you_ want to go on, _fine_. But I'm not going to help you if you refuse to refresh your basics. It's the only way you're gonna get better."

Now Lance is really, _really_ mad, and it's coursing through his system like red-hot lava through the veins of a volcano about to blow its top. "I don't _need_ to relearn them!" he throws back. "I'm a paladin of Voltron! I've flown two different Lions, for fuck's sake! I know what I'm doing—"

"Doesn't really seem like it to me," Keith interrupts, face screwed up with defiance.

 _That's **it**._  Lance stomps toward him and thrusts his hand against the other boy's skinny chest, pushing him up against the wall. They're practically nose-to-nose, and in a better moment, all different kinds of possibilities would've been stumbling their way through Lance's overworked heart. But here and now, his actions aren't fueled by his creeping feelings for Keith — it's all fueled by his terrifyingly sudden surge of insurmountable anger.

"What's your problem, Keith? Really, what is it?"

The other boy looks unperturbed by the fact that Lance's face is showing all the signs of rage. His ever-fiery eyes have gone as cool as ice. "What's _my_ problem? Well, there're a few, actually. Your piss-poor attitude and refusal to clean up your act so you can learn from your mistakes being the majority of them."

Lance drops his hand from Keith's chest like he's stung it, and more on an emotional level than anything else, because out of everything, it's the one place where'd he'd never truly hit him. They bickered and bantered endlessly (or at least until one of the other paladins demanded that they shut-up), but it'd never been quite like this...

" _Excuse_ me?" he cut in defiantly. "Who decided that it would be a good idea to oversee my training? _You_ did. Who decided that he wanted to do it all by himself? _You_ did. Who promised to help me get better? _You_ did!"

But Keith just rolls his eyes. "I can't help you get better if that isn't what you truly want, _Lance_." The other boy practically spits out his name, and it burrows even deeper into his heart.

It's too much — Lance shucks off his paladin armor right then and there and rushes for the door, leaving Keith behind to stare after him.

 

* * *

 

He's genuinely shocked when Keith shows up the next day, same time, same place. He immediately abandons his toe-touches, instead asking a noticeably-bewildered, "Why?"

"Don't make me regret it," the other boy interrupts darkly. Lance doesn't say anything in response, just cocks an eyebrow to hide his surprise as nonchalantly as possible.

"You're done stretching, so what're you waiting for?" Keith snaps.

"Nothing," Lance mutters, and takes a defensive stance on the floor. But three attempts at the same basic offensive sequence, and he still doesn't improve.

Keith shakes his hair out and glares at him, and Lance rolls his eyes. "What did I do wrong _this_  time, Chief?"

The other boy completely ignores the jibe — yet another out-of-character move. "You're being too forceful. You're overstepping yourself. And it's making you sloppy."

Deep, _deep_ down, Lance knows that Keith's right, but something about the situation makes him want to keep arguing, to keeping pushing, to say something that hurts. So he picks his greatest fear and twists it toward the other boy, hoping to create an exact replica of an ugly wound inside his heart that just won't scar over.

"I shouldn't've agreed to this."

For the first time since they've met, Keith's at a complete standstill, his night sky eyes wide and staring. "Wh-What?"

"This whole, you know, training thing," Lance sighs, wiping the beading sweat from his brow with the hem of his shirt. "I don't know why I keep coming back here. More specifically, I don't know why I keep coming back to _you_." The words are pouring out of him now — he's as unstoppable as a waterfall crashing wildly over a cliffside.

"We don't play nice, you and me. I mean, I've said it before — we're _rivals_ , right? And you've outright mentioned on multiple occasions that I piss you off more than anybody else in the universe. So why would I think things've changed?"

It's only then that Keith falls back, emotions flitting as rapidly across his face as the flashing Galra knife that he so skillfully wields in the thick of a battle. "Is that _really_ how you feel?" he asks, so quietly, but somehow, so loudly.

"I mean, it explains all, uh... _this_ ," Lance begins vaguely, with a wide gesture thrown in that means absolutely nothing to either of them.

"All this... _what_?"

"We just... We can't do things together without fighting," he explains lamely. "Hell, I don't think we can even _stand_ each other—"

Now Keith's pushing forward, and his face has settled on frustration. "So, what? Everything that's happened between us over the past few months, you're calling that _pointless_? You're saying it wasn't worth it?" He's getting louder and louder, his voice bouncing off the too-shiny walls of the training deck. "Forming Voltron? Saving the universe? That 'bonding moment' that you keep pretending never happened, but I know that you know it did?"

Something in Lance's stomach drops.

"What about stargazing on the roof that one night on that random purple planet? The one where you taught me all those constellations? Or, or... The time you spent an hour complaining to me about your sister throwing up all over you on Space Mountain at Disney World when you were six?" The other boy's not quite making eye contact with him as rushes onward with, "When you made me feel like I wasn't worthless, like I really _could_  be a leader for this team?"

Lance wants to say something, _anything_ , but he can only listen, eyes wide and staring at Keith.

"And that one time we... talked. I-In my room. You know." He crosses his arms tightly over his chest. "It all... It all meant _nothing_ to you? You're ready to give up on us, us as a team, just like... _that_?"

Lance's hands are shaking — it takes him to a moment to realize that he's hidden them in his armpits, just like Keith always does when he's uncomfortable or frustrated or upset, or even a rare combination of the three. He knows that "us" doesn't just mean him and Keith, and he knows that the verbal sparring match that they've seemed to have landed themselves in with almost no warning at all has actually been simmering below the surface of their day-to-day lives for some time. But he never would've expected it to blow up quite like _this_.

"Keith, I, look, I... I _want_  to be... _us_. But..." He licks his lips, which have suddenly gone very, very dry. Are they _really_ having this conversation? It feels wholly _un_ real, almost as if he's dreaming it, except in vivid color and surround sound.

"I really can't get a read on whether or not you feel the same way, because every time I think you do, I-I just..." 

Keith's mouth gapes open like a koi fish's, but Lance powers on, finally meeting his gaze, his sharp jaw, his careful mouth. "I... I know that I joke, and I know that I make fun of you, but I don't, I don't think I mean it, and I just..." He trails off, because for the first time in his life, he's completely run out of words.

"So then why're you always such a pain in my ass?" The words tumble out of Keith's mouth, no longer careful. "If you... If you mean what you say, and you want me around, then why—"

"Because I... _Ugh_." Lance pinches the bridge of his nose. He's good at flirting. Well, he _thinks_ he's good at flirting. Definitely good with girls. But does _this_ count as flirting?

Is he flirting with _Keith_?

 _If you are,_ reasons a small voice in the back of his head, _then you're doing a pretty shitty job of it. You should probably do better._

"Lance, I..." He looks up to see Keith looking back at him, a _hard_ look, and it takes all of his willpower not to look away. "I wanted to help you because I want to make sure you can protect yourself. You're already a great fighter, but... Well." He lets out a small sigh. "See, I might take the Blades up on their offer to train me."

The entire world stops.

"...Really?" is all Lance can manage around a sizable lump that's suddenly taken up an unecessarily vast amount of real estate in his throat.

"Y-Yeah. Really," the other boy echoes, voice softly unsure.

_Keith's... **leaving**?_

"You're _leaving_?"

"I'm... I'm considering it. I just, I..." He rubs at the back of his neck, staring down at his boots. "There're some things I've gotta find out. And I think the Marmora can help me find them." But then his eyes are back on Lance's, and it causes shivers to run down his spine, down to his very core.

"You really _have_ become my right-hand man, you know," he concludes softly. "I think I trust you even more than I trust myself, sometimes."

_Keith._

Suddenly, Lance is running at him, and Keith looks absolutely terrified by the sudden turn of events. But he doesn't even lash out with a single punch (which Lance takes to be a pretty good sign), so he's able to knock the other boy flat on his back against the floor.

"L-Lance," Keith wheezes, his chest rapidly rising and falling beneath Lance's knees as he regains his breath. "Lance, what the fu—!" It's then that he opens his eyes and looks up to see the other boy triumphantly straddling his waist, and Lance can feel that he's got the evilest of grins plastered across his face.

"Well, if you're planning on making me into the best fighter in the galaxy, the least I can do is return the favor," he explains cheerfully.

"...You're sitting on me." Keith sounds rather nonplussed by this sudden development, but again, no signs of violence.

"You're a sharp one, Samurai," Lance teases.

"Get _off_ me," the other boy complains while making absolutely no physical effort to resist.

Lance can feel the slowest of smirks unfurling itself across his face. He has absolutely no clue where this sudden burst of courage is coming from, but it's all worth it as he looks down into Keith's stupidly beautiful face.

"Make me," he says.

"Oh, yeah?" An equally mischievous grin is returned to him. "You want some of this... _Sharpshooter_?"

Lance blinks, _hard_. He hadn't planned on getting this far. "Uh—"

Without any warning, the other boy completely flips them back over, smooth as a summer wave and intense as a burst of sparks. He looks infuriatingly pleased with himself as he triumphantly proclaims, "Pinned ya!"

"Hey!" Lance tries to roll away, twisting off the ground in an attempt to escape, but Keith is already back onto him, thumping him to the ground once more. He hates to admit it, but it's a pretty worthwhile bruise. But it doesn't stop him from hollering in the other boy's face: "Hey, asshole, maybe gimme a break and don't crack my rib cage in half!"

Keith's grin is so uncharacteristically gleeful, it almost makes him forget what they'd been talking about just a minute ago. "Pinned ya again," he crows.

"Keith—!"

"Yeah, McClain? You begging for mercy yet?"

Lance looks up into those dark eyes, and somehow, he's seeing something brighter than a supernova reflected back at him. So instead of answering that question, he decides to come up with an altogether different response.

"Keith, I... I don't want you to go, but even if you do... Even if you do, I'll still be your right-hand man, okay?" He can feel himself turning red as he says it, and he wonders if he should just try rolling away again, but this time, out of the castle's bay doors and into oblivion. But then—

 _Fuck it._  His heart's always moved a little quicker than his brain, so when he pulls Keith down into a rough approximation of a kiss that neither of them expect, he breaks it off just as quickly, the red flush spreading across his face from ear to ear.

"I-I'm sorry, I—"

The other boy's hand is reaching downward, stopping, then moving, settling, just at the edge of his ear, exposed to the hushed air around them. His face is really too beautiful to look at — it's like staring into the goddamn sun. 

And then _he's_ the one leaning in, his lips brushing Lance's back, so damn gentle despite their chapped-up surfaces, and Lance can barely breathe.

"I'm not sorry," Keith whispers into the shell of his ear, his shaggy hair tickling at its edge. "I'm not sorry, Lance."

**Author's Note:**

> This is exactly how I imagine Keith told Lance that he was leaving Voltron for the Blades. And they totally kissed. It totally happened. I'm not crying! YOU'RE crying! GOSH.
> 
> (Also, who else loves "The Lion King?")


End file.
